


Nothing Standing in Your Way

by feverishsea



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Analog Computers, Internet, M/M, Really Very Geeky Indeed, Steampunk AU, Victorian-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-28
Updated: 2012-10-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 06:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverishsea/pseuds/feverishsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Marcus loses everything (his career, his health, and his hope of salvaging the family honor), he thinks that there's nothing else he could possibly want out of life. But a chance encounter with a captive sky-pirate leads Marcus to realize that perhaps his old dreams just weren't big enough.</p>
<p>Otherwise known as: Marcus and Esca invent the internet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Standing in Your Way

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Eagle Exchange. References to the internet are pretty oblique, maybe too oblique as nobody seems to have noticed... but present nonetheless.

There is a burning in his leg.  
  
Marcus thrashes, trying to throw off his unseen assailant. He hears voices – some comforting, some shouting – above him, but he can’t make out the words. He smells something foul, but doesn’t know what it is. The panic makes him think that perhaps this is his world now – no sense, just unending misery.  
  
So when the pain ratchets up, he’s almost grateful. He tries to hold in his cries, because that’s what a soldier does, but when inky black unconsciousness reaches out its arms to him, he falls into them willingly.  
  
Marcus dreams.  
  
\-------------  
  
His father leans over with a smile hidden under his broad mustache.  
  
“My boy!” he crows, and drops a heavy hand on Marcus’s head. Marcus stares up at him, giddy at the rare acknowledgment. “I have made the discovery of the century. But of course, you must not tell anyone.” His father winks and Marcus nods fervently. He would never.  
  
“My External Analog Graphic Linking Emblem has the potential to unite the whole country,” his father almost whispers, lost in thought. He tugs at the brass buttons of his waistcoat. “Perhaps even the entire world. The Queen and her ministers have seen the potential of my device. What do you think of _that_ , eh, boy? Your own father, taking his little tinkerings to the Queen herself?” He gives a great, booming laugh.  
  
Then, of course, his father dies in the north and loses the E.A.G.L.E. If Marcus could speak to his father now, he’d tell the man that he doesn’t think much of it.  
  
\-------------  
  
A boy – no, a man, but a small one – is shoved out into the arena for the next cage match. This last one is a match to the death. Blindingly illegal of course, but nobody much cares what the nobility do if they’re clever enough to catch a sky pirate for themselves.  
  
“Jolly good fun, see?” Placidus nudges Marcus’s arm, and Marcus forces a smile onto his face. “I heard that one was caught actually sneaking around on foot the other day. When they caught him, he blathered something about a bird.”  
  
“Really.” Marcus doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t expect to. It isn’t so much that the man is a sky pirate - it’s just that Marcus doesn’t understand much of anything anymore.  
  
“Marcus,” Placidus says his name with uncharacteristic hesitance, and Marcus glances over. The man bites his lip, almost squirming in his seat. “I am – If there is anything I can aid you in, I will. Anything you – want. I am sorry.”  
  
Marcus is sorry too. Sorry for the accident that cost him the use of his leg. Sorry for the perfect, bright memory of those mornings with his men where the air was clear and they took orders as sharply as any machine. Sorry for the death of his dreams; the death of his family honor.  
  
He turns his face away. “There is nothing I want,” he says, and misses the look of sadness on Placidus’s face.  
  
\-------------  
  
A sky pirate screeches a challenge from the vent of his flying machine. The whole thing looks improbable; old sheets of scrap metal soldered together with rusty nails. A junkyard dog of a device.  
  
Through the open archer’s strip at the front of the machine, Marcus can see the weatherbeaten face of the pirate inside snarling at him.  
  
The rest of his battalion are flying swiftly back to their encampment on the cliff. Marcus chances a look over his shoulder. With their backs turned, just a few lucky shots could shoot through their engines and punch a hole for the steam to come gushing out. Marcus would shoot the device out of the sky himself, but one gun is empty and the other has been shot clean off.  
  
Sunlight glints off Flavius’s flying device as he half-turns, and off the wires that the sky-pirates string nonsensically between the cliffs.  
  
“Go!” Marcus screams, knowing he can’t be heard. Flavius hesitates. His men are so close to safety. And the flying machine in front of him has turned its turrets toward their flanks.  
   
Almost without him willing it, Marcus's hand curls around the lever in front of him. The one that sends his machine shooting forward.  
  
The sky pirate meets his eyes when he turns around. Marcus smiles grimly at him. No one else will know his story, but this one man will know that Marcus went to his fate unafraid.  
  
“Make it back, lads,” Marcus whispers, and slams the lever down.  
  
\-------------  
  
The giant in the ring steps toward the small man. Marcus glances quickly at Placidus, who makes an irritated face and shrugs.  
  
“Poor sport, isn’t it?” Placidus complains. “I suppose the owner made a bet or some such nonsense.”  
  
The giant takes another step. Marcus, watching more closely than he can explain or justify, sees the exact moment that the line of tension across the smaller man’s back eases.  
  
“He’s not going to fight,” Marcus mutters, more to himself than to his companion.  
  
“What?” Placidus frowns in confusion. “Of course he is. They all fight.”  
  
“This one won't.” Marcus stands without thinking, and bites back a cry. He doesn’t even know why he’s on his feet. “He’s choosing an honorable death over an unfair fight.”  
   
If Marcus had the words, he would tell Placidus that he understands the value in accepting your fate with your head held high rather than scrabbling desperately in the dirt for the chance of a few more moments on earth. That sometimes it doesn’t matter if the choice is nothing at all; that what matters is that you made it.  
  
But Marcus is - was - a soldier, not a poet, so he focuses on balancing his weight properly to remain on his feet. He can see the owner sitting just a few yards away at the edge of the cage. His severance money, handed over just a few short hours ago, feels heavy in his pocket.  
  
Placidus’s eyes widen. “That’s not honor, that’s insanity!”  
  
“Isn’t it the same thing?” Marcus mutters, and plunges forward into the crowd.  
  
\-------------  
  
Always at the edges of his dreams is a slight figure that waits around corners and hangs back in the shadow of doorways. Marcus tries to see it; asks it to wait. But it won’t, so finally in the courtyard of his Uncle’s sprawling estate (or is it his father’s villa? Or inside his barracks?) Marcus gives chase.  
  
Ignoring the pain in his leg he runs, chasing the elusive figure around alleyways, past a metal flying behemoth, over the roof of a train.  
  
The sound of a space pirate zipping overhead in one of their podlike flying devices sings overhead, and the figure’s head snaps up in surprise. It trips, and Marcus flings himself forward.  
  
He looks down at shaggy blond hair, delicate features, and a proud expression. Marcus remembers.  
  
“Esca,” he breathes, and opens his eyes.  
  
\-------------  
  
A familiar face blinks down at him in shock. Water drips onto his face, and Marcus lifts a trembling arm to push the rag in Esca’s hand away.  
  
“Apologies,” Esca mutters, and steps back, though his eyes are still wide. “I did not know you had returned to the land of the living.”  
  
“I…” Marcus’s voice dissolves into coughs, and Esca fetches him a glass of water.  
   
"You would do better to rest more. It's night," Esca says as Marcus drains the glass, and Marcus squints up at him over the rim of the cup. The fever - Marcus knows he had one, because those were nothing else but fever dreams - has played with his mind and left him woozy and uncertain, his memory a vague fog. Marcus remembers a bitter, sullen Esca who was as happy to die in the ring as he was to be bought for a servant. Not technically slavery, but not freedom, either.  
   
Esca dims the gas lamp and reaches for the empty cup. He frowns at Marcus. "Is there something weighing on your mind?"  
   
Perhaps there is a way to ask your servant if he is also your friend, but Marcus does not know it. "No, there is nothing. Thank you. Goodnight."  
   
Over the next few days Marcus struggles to remember not only his mind, but his body. The doctor's first operation on his leg - injured in his spectacular crash with a pirate and subsequent fall down a cliff-face - was unsuccessful, and so a second doctor went back in. Marcus remembers that better now; remembers the taste of fear in his mouth and the plague mask shielding his doctor's face. The frown that knit Esca's eyebrows together when he leaned his weight down, pinning Marcus to the operating table.  
   
The next two weeks pass in a haze of pain and opiates, which the doctor recommends and Marcus detests. He can't stand the fuzzy, unreal feeling they give him, and he takes smaller and smaller doses until he simply refuses and throws them into the garbage compactor. Esca watches with an unreadable expression and doesn't protest.  
   
After that, things seem to solidify, and Marcus begins to feel the ground under his feet again. He remembers an icy, silent Esca, and he also remembers Esca's eyes flying open in something like panic when the metal leg of an automated carriage caught Marcus walking just a bit too slow on the street. He remembers Esca shouting his name, barreling into him, and rolling safely away from the cage of metal legs, safe in the trap of Esca's wiry arms. He remembers careful smiles, and Esca's realization that Marcus has no wish to hold Esca's so-called debt over his head.  
  
Perhaps it should matter more, that Marcus has just come back from watching his men die at the hands of Esca’s people. Or that now Esca is of a class lower than even the smallest serving maid, and Marcus belongs to a family which employs over a hundred servants. But somehow, when they are together, they are not two separate peoples. They are simply two men, Marcus and Esca.  
  
“I plan to wrestle today. Do you wish to watch?” Esca asks casually, a month into Marcus’s recovery.  
  
Marcus hesitates for a second, and then remembers that it is Saturday. Irrelevant, except that it’s a day of rest for most of the servants. Not so Esca – captive servants are never actually free – but then, Esca never has to worry overmuch about appearing idle. Marcus can’t even bring himself to pretend he cares.  
  
“I...” Marcus is about to refuse when he realizes that Esca just practically invited him along somewhere. And for reasons he doesn’t fully understand, Marcus is eager to please this servant of his (there is a contradiction somewhere in there, but Marcus can’t be bothered with it). So he says yes.  
  
An hour later, he regrets it.  
  
Esca strips off his loose white shirt and shucks it over his head, revealing a lithe torso, the sharp edges of his ribs just barely visible under the lightly tanned skin. He takes off his shoes, leaving on just a pair of plain brown trousers.  
  
At the first tackle of the match, Esca throws his head back and laughs. Marcus shouldn’t be able to, but he would swear that he sees the sunlight catch in Esca’s green eyes. A light sheen of sweat shimmers on Esca’s body, and Marcus shifts uncomfortably as he notices that Esca’s trousers have slipped lower on his hips.  
  
But the discomfort he feels at the unwelcome ache in his groin is nothing compared to the pang of envy that lances him through the gut.  
  
He manages to wait until Esca wins his second match, and then he can bear it no longer. Marcus heaves himself to his feet with his cane, his hateful cane, and shuffles away as fast as he can, despising the leg that stubbornly drags behind him.  
  
“Mar - Master?” he hears Esca call out behind him, his voice winded. Marcus tilts his head up to squint into the sun and goes faster, or tries, anyway. “Marcus!”  
  
He makes it to his room and slumps down on the edge of his bed before Esca comes bursting into the room, ruddy-cheeked and hair standing on end.  
  
“What is the meaning of this?” Esca demands, and Marcus gazes up at him helplessly.  
  
A cripple rebuked by his own servant, Marcus thinks, and begins to laugh. Once he starts he can’t stop. The frown on Esca’s forehead deepens until his eyes fly open wide in alarm, and Marcus realizes that he is crying.  
  
“Away,” he mumbles, turning his face to the wall, too miserable to even be very ashamed. “I’ve no need of you, go.”  
  
He stares determinedly at the wall, trying not to feel the tears running down his cheeks. Marcus feels tempted to laugh again; now he is not only a pathetic cripple, but a crying pathetic cripple, a meaty husk of his former self. But the laughter sticks in his throat and comes out as sobs.  
  
“I think you are wrong,” Esca says quietly, voice suddenly very close to his ear.  
  
Marcus whips his head around in surprise, and his face runs into Esca’s sweaty neck as the smaller man folds him into a clumsy embrace.  
  
The shock halts his tears. “Esca - I - what -” The word _inappropriate_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he forbears for some reason.  
  
“Hush,” Esca whispers. So Marcus does. They sit there for a very long time as the dampness on Esca’s skin cools and so perhaps it is seeking warmth that makes him press in closer to Marcus. For his part, Marcus never moves to return the embrace, but he sits there in the closest thing he’s known to peace in months.  
  
Eventually he wakes up, on his own again, but not entirely - for Esca is smiling at him from the other side of the room, puttering around with some half-broken nonsense machine his uncle purchased months ago.  
  
Marcus smiles back.  
  
\----------------  
  
All men of polite society wear moustaches. The only men that do not have them are sky pirates and soldiers. Esca has never grown one, which fits his pride and stubbornness, though Marcus has privately wondered if perhaps Esca is simply incapable of growing one. If it weren’t for the man’s razor-edged features and tongue, he would closely resemble a youth.  
  
Marcus is no longer a soldier, but he has yet to grow a moustache. He thinks about it; knows he should. But every morning his hand falls to his shaving kit and the pulls out the blade.  
  
He is not a soldier; certainly not a sky pirate. At least Esca still has a place that he belongs, even if he cannot go there. Marcus does not belong anywhere anymore.  
  
But that way lies self-pity, and Marcus has been less inclined to that of late, for one reason or another. (He suspects the reason is small and fierce and possesses a barbed tongue, but Marcus does not dwell overmuch on that fact.)  
  
“What think you of my purchase, Master?” Esca drawls, coming up behind him after a trip to the market for Uncle Aquila.  
  
Marcus turns around and bites down on his lip, not sure if he’s suppressing laughter or arousal.  
  
“Esca, what is _that_?” he asks.  
  
Esca brings up a hand and casually flicks the gold hoop in his left ear. “A mark of my people,” he says, grinning.  
  
“A mark of my arse,” Marcus returns. Esca’s grin broadens. “I know damn well your people don’t truck with that nonsense.”  
  
“You are right,” Esca says gleefully. “But you should have seen the housemaids scurrying away from me in the market. I have found the ultimate mark of my heathen soul, methinks.” And Marcus can’t help laughing.  
  
In a way, it's almost like he's living vicariously through his servant. Marcus isn't sure if Esca is aware of this and playing up to it, or if he would behave exactly the same anyway and is simply benefitting from his master's indulgence.  
  
It does not go unnoticed.  
  
\-------------  
  
"That ex-pirate has you wrapped around his little finger," Placidus remarks disdainfully at Uncle Aquila’s next dinner. It's said in a quiet aside just to Marcus, so Marcus cannot claim offense. It's the sort of thing a friend might tease him about, but Marcus feels hunted.  
   
"It isn't like that," Marcus says gruffly, unable to express himself any better. Placidus arches an eyebrow.  
   
"No? He's a sullen, willful little thing and what do you do but pat him on the head and thank him for his dutiful service! A bad investment, if you ask me. You bought a wolf for a dog’s place."  
  
Placidus leans over to examine a tray of sweets, already losing interest in the conversation. Marcus, on the other hand, struggles for the words to defend both himself and Esca, though he should only be concerned with his own honor. A servant like Esca, of course, has no need of honor.  
  
In theory.  
   
"He's fine," Marcus says, woefully inadequate. Placidus rolls his eyes.  
   
"Here." Esca appears at their sides and thrusts another tray of sweets, clearly handed to him by Sassticca, nearly up Placidus's nose. His tone is nothing short of glacial. Placidus shoots Marcus a look that says _here, you see?_  
   
Marcus turns his face away. He owes Esca nothing. But that doesn’t change the fact that Marcus wants to give him - well - he isn’t exactly sure what he wants to give Esca. And this is quite possibly a topic he shouldn’t be debating at a crowded party.  
  
He hears Esca pause by his side.  
   
"Is there anything more I can get you, Master?" Esca asks in a high, breathy voice that Marcus does not recognize.  
   
In his surprise, Marcus involuntarily twists around and looks up at Esca, who is staring down at him with an expression that Marcus also does not recognize. Esca's eyes are wide and hopeful, his face eager, though there is a twist of longing sadness at the corner of his mouth. Placidus's eyebrows nearly touch the ceiling.  
   
"I - that is - no, thank you," Marcus garbles, feeling the floor slipping under his feet. Esca is clearly playing Placidus's game, with much more skill than Marcus himself, but Marcus is thrown aback and his brain can't seem to catch up with the hot, sweeping rush that pools in the bottom of his stomach.  
   
Esca sighs, just barely. "Very well, Master." He peeks up at Marcus from under his eyelashes and then hurries away, almost tripping over his own feet in a display quite unlike Esca's usual catlike grace.  
   
"And I begin to see the appeal." Placidus grins, though it looks rather forced. "You always did have an unnatural attachment to chivalry."  
   
"No," Marcus says, before realizing that he's ruining Esca's work (whatever that might mean). "He - I -"  
   
"Relax," Placidus says, and pats him on the shoulder. "I hardly think you're interested in that bit of gristle. But let your hound moon over you. It'll do him good. Perhaps it will dull the edges of his fangs."  
   
Marcus doesn’t want Esca tamed; doesn’t want him de-fanged. He can’t see why he would. But this seems like the best response Marcus can hope for, really, so he shrugs and lets it go.  
   
Marcus does not see Esca again until much later, until his Uncle's guests have piled into their automated carriages and begun to be carried away in the jerky steps of the carriage's long limbs. Once he has tipped his hat to the last of them, Marcus goes wandering down the hall and finds Esca tending the fire in his room.  
   
"What exactly were you hoping to accomplish?" Marcus asks in an abrupt voice as he yanks at the laces of his boots.  
   
Esca walks over, kneels gracefully at his feet, and starts to undo the laces himself with clever fingers.  
   
"With what?" Esca drawls lazily. Marcus feels an unexpected stab of relief at the return of his - friend? Servant? More? Marcus can't say.  
   
"You know with what."  
   
"Mmm." Esca makes quick work of the laces and helps Marcus unbuckle his suspenders.  
   
"Esca!"  
   
The man rolls his eyes. "He was making aspersions on your character. It was my job to set him straight, was it not?”  
  
“And when have you ever done anything because it’s your job?” Marcus retorts without thinking. Esca has that effect on him; makes the rest of the world seem to fade into insignificance. Marcus forgets entirely about what he should do and just acts. It’s almost like having orders again, though the orders come from himself this time.  
  
Esca’s hands still at his shoulders. He tips his head back to study Marcus, who takes in Esca’s focused expression and fights off the shiver that threatens to run down his spine.  
  
“And...” Esca’s hand slides over the broad plane of Marcus’s shoulder towards his neck. Marcus tries to keep his mouth from dropping open, his eyelids from fluttering shut, from simply hyperventilating. “...what other reasons might I have?” he finishes the question in a whisper. His mouth seems very close. Closer than it was a moment ago? Marcus isn’t sure; he feels paralyzed.  
  
“Marcus, I forgot!”  
  
Placidus’s words echo past his doorway and Marcus jerks violently away from Esca. But his leg betrays him and he stumbles backwards, falling onto the bed and catching himself on his hands. By the look on Placidus’s face, Marcus’s flushed cheeks, open shirt, and splayed legs paint a picture. Of what, he doesn’t like to imagine.  
  
“If you’re quite done molesting your master?” Placidus asks Esca drily. Despite himself, Esca almost looks amused. Marcus coughs and struggles upright.  
  
“It isn’t - we weren’t -”  
  
“Why is it that you’re always explaining yourself to me, hmm?” Placidus rolls his eyes and doesn’t wait for an answer. “I forgot to tell you at dinner, and I thought you ought to know. There’s been a rumor that the E.A.G.L.E. has been found up north.”  
  
All thoughts of embarrassment and simmering heat fade away. Marcus shoots to his feet - well, attempts to - and falls back on his arse, cursing.  
  
“Where?” he demands. Placidus is watching him with an almost worried expression on his face. He sighs, but hands over the news readily enough.  
  
“The rumor is that the sky-pirates had it, but none of them knew how to use it. Even they are capable of stealing information eventually though, analog computers have been in development for at least fifteen years after -” he breaks off, staring at Esca. “Why so interested, pirate?” he sneers.  
  
Marcus only then thinks to look at Esca, who has frozen stock-still in a way that is much more telling than any exclamation might be. The man’s eyes are wide, and his expression wavers somewhere between outrage and hope.  
  
Placidus steps closer, crowding into Esca’s personal space. “Do you know something about it?” he demands. Esca narrows his eyes but doesn’t give an inch. Placidus grabs Esca by the shoulders and starts to shake him.  
  
“Oy!” Marcus limps the few feet to them faster than he ever has before and shoves Placidus away, hard. His ears flame. “Keep your hands off Esca!” Esca makes some muffled noise of protest, but Marcus ignores him completely and angles his shoulder to block the smaller man.  
  
Placidus rocks backward, understanding dawning on his thin face. “Ah,” he says, and Marcus’s heart sinks. “So it’s like that, is it.”  
  
“I don’t know what you mean,” Marcus says, avoiding his eyes.  
  
A smile twists Placidus’s face. “I think you do.” When Marcus looks back up, Placidus is clearly suppressing anger that Marcus doesn’t really understand. “Marcus Aquila, the bravest and best of us - choosing a damned pirate over his father’s honor.”  
  
While Marcus is still summoning strength into his lame leg and color back into his face, Esca leaps forward and his fist connects with Placidus’s face, making the taller man collapse against the doorframe.  
  
“Leave. Now.” Esca’s shoulders are shaking in fury, and his fists are clenched tightly at his sides. Marcus feels his own anger evaporate in the face of Esca’s wrath on his behalf. Then his stomach sinks as he realizes that Placidus is well within his rights to demand blood recompense from Esca. Servants do not hit their betters.  
  
Placidus holds a slightly shaking hand to his jaw and looks at Marcus with regret in his eyes. He smiles ruefully and then winces.  
  
“I apologize. Truly,” he says. “I used unfair words when there are others I would have said.”  
  
“Others?” Marcus asks, bewildered. Nothing is happening like he expected. Placidus turns and stares at Esca for a long moment.  
  
“That one can tell you, if he wishes,” Placidus says, and turns to leave, gathering his cloak and the tatters of his dignity around him. “Though I’d prefer he didn’t.”  
  
He walks out the door and down the hall, leaving Marcus staring at the ramrod straight line of Esca’s back.  
  
“Esca?” he asks, confused. “What did he mean?”  
  
Rather than answer, Esca just stands there, staring at the empty door. Marcus takes a step forward and lays a tentative hand on the man’s shoulder. “Esca?”  
  
Esca makes a noise low in his throat and whirls around, so quickly that Marcus stumbles back, half expecting an attack.  
  
A firm body slams into his and hands curl into his shirt. He feels vaguely disgusted at himself for trusting an enslaved man. Marcus tries to think, to figure out where he will go from here, when this last thing is gone from him.  
  
Then parted lips press onto his, almost gently. Marcus gasps and Esca takes advantage of his shock to slip the tip of his wet tongue into Marcus’s mouth. The hands fist more tightly in his shirt and Esca sighs into his mouth when Marcus tilts his head, deepening the kiss without even thinking about his actions.  
  
“Yes, this...” Esca moans into his mouth, and Marcus suddenly realizes that he has no idea what it is that Esca really knows or wants. Does he actually understand the words that Placidus refused to say? Is he somehow in love - or at least lust - with Marcus? Could everything be a ruse, just a clever plan to get his hands on the E.A.G.L.E.?  
  
And Marcus is so tired of feeling like a fool. As a soldier, he was perfect. Here, with men like Placidus and Esca stalking circles around him, he feels thick and wooly-headed. He thinks that if there was any justice in the world, it would be him serving Esca, and the thought makes him sick. Esca would never care for him if Marcus wasn’t in a position to do him harm.  
  
Marcus brings up his hands and pushes Esca away. Esca trips back and looks behind him in alarm.  
  
“Ah, yes, the door. I suppose I should fix that.” He smiles in a way that invites Marcus to join in, but it fades when Marcus remains stony-faced. “What is it?”  
  
“What do you want?” Marcus says, but it comes out more like a growl. Esca blinks and takes two steps toward him.  
  
“I should have thought that was fairly obvious,” Esca says into his ear, hot breath brushing his neck as clever fingers stroke down Marcus’s clothed length without warning. Marcus bats his hand away and goes over to the bed, but doesn’t lie down.  
  
“No. I mean - the E.A.G.L.E. What do you know of it?”  
  
Esca’s expression becomes wary. He looks sidelong at Marcus and something in his expression collapses. He folds gracefully to sit on the floor and rubs a hand over his face.  
  
“I admit myself somewhat thrown by this revelation about your father. What exactly was his connection to the E.A.G.L.E.?”  
  
Marcus folds his hands in his lap. “He invented it. And then he lost it.” Marucs looks back up. “What is yours?”  
  
Esca brings up one knee and hooks his arm around it, looking away at a past Marcus can’t see. With his sharp features and quiet grace, he is almost painfully beautiful in that moment.  
  
“I... your... _friend_ ,” he spits the word, “was not entirely wrong. The development of analog machines has reached even the cliffs of the sky-pirates.”  
  
Marcus shrugs. “They have fallen out of favor, though. We once thought they would connect the country, but we were never able to realize their potential.”  
  
Esca’s fierce gaze meets his. “Your father was. Or so I believe,” he corrects himself.  
  
“So you - what? You tried to steal it?” Marcus asks blankly. Esca glares at him.  
  
“I tried to _find_ it. Your father lost it in the north, yes, but nobody knows exactly where. I grew careless in my search, and was unfortunate enough to be captured.”  
  
“Can you create programs, as my father did, then?” Marcus asks, trying to process this new information. He doesn’t really understand analog computers; mostly nobody does, anymore, except for eccentrics like his Uncle Aquila.  
  
Esca’s eyes light up. “I can,” he says proudly. And he seems to burn even more brightly in that moment, his mind and heart alight, than he did just a moment before when his beauty struck Marcus so.  
  
The smaller man leans forward eagerly, words tumbling out of his mouth. “It is not only a symbol, Marcus. It is the keystone to a web of an interconnected network of people, all with their own analog computers, who can send large packets of information to each other. The E.A.G.L.E. will allow them to _communicate_. Them - us. Everyone. Where the wires can go and the computers can go, information may also pass. What do you say to that?”  
  
“I – I – I must sleep,” Marcus mutters, and turns his head way, crumbling the moment into ash. Esca’s mouth falls open in protest, but Marcus waves him away. “No. Nothing more tonight, Esca. I must think.”  
  
Esca leaps to his feet. “What is there to think about?” he demands. “You know what you want. Take it! There is nothing standing in your way.”  
  
“I do not wish for things I cannot have, or things given out of necessity,” Marcus snaps, and immediately regrets it. Esca’s eyes widen, and he knows he has given away more than he meant to.  
  
“Marcus,” Esca says, his voice gentle. And it is this, this incredibly unwelcome pity, that finally breaks Marcus.  
  
“What, do you imagine I would take a pirate north with me to search for the E.A.G.L.E.?” Marcus demands, forcing cruelty into his tone. “Do you think that I would ever allow one such as you to even look at my father’s work?”  
  
“Marcus,” Esca says, but it’s more like a warning now. Marcus ignores it.  
  
“If I decide to go, I will ask my _friend_ Placidus,” Marcus says meaningfully. Even if he isn’t quite sure what the meaning is, Esca is always one step ahead. He will understand whatever it is that Marcus doesn’t.  
  
There is a brief moment of silence, and Esca’s face goes smooth and cold.  
  
“Very well,” he says in a brittle voice, and stalks out of the room.  
  
Marcus absolutely does not wait up all night, wondering if he might return.  
  
\-------------  
  
Spurred to action by a sleepless night and bitterness, Marcus sends a message to Placidus, requesting his presence. Placidus obeys with almost stunning alacrity.  
  
“I have never known you to listen so well before,” Marcus says with a wry smile upon the man’s arrival. Placidus ducks his head and returns it hesitantly.  
  
“I wish you knew how thoroughly I repent of my words the other night,” he says. Marcus has to hide a flinch; in the ensuing events with Esca, he had forgotten entirely about Placidus and his words. But the man is here now, looking like a kicked dog, and Marcus can’t muster enough anger in his heart to truly care.  
  
“Peace; it is no matter.” Marcus tries to think of how to transition back to the E.A.G.L.E. But now that Placidus stands here in front of him with his thin frame and ruffled shirt, he finds that he can no longer truly consider asking Placidus to join him on his quest. A journey like that – it changes a man.  
  
And Placidus is not the man that Marcus wants to be changed by.  
  
“It is of importance to me,” Placidus says, and steps closer. It is ludicrous, but Marcus has to fight an involuntary urge to back away. Placidus tips his head to one side and looks up into Marcus’s eyes (though not as far up as Esca would have to look). “What you think is… of great importance to me.”  
  
Two things happen at once: Marcus sees Esca’s dirty blond head peer around the corner, and Placidus grabs the hem of Marcus’s shirt and kisses him.  
  
Marcus freezes, eyes wide open, staring past Placidus’s forehead at Esca. He closes his eyes for a second, trying to understand what is happening. Placidus doesn’t feel unpleasant - his lips are soft and his breath is sweet - but Marcus cannot bring himself to feel love, or even lust. He feels nothing at all.  
  
Gently, Marcus pulls his head back and grips Placidus by the shoulders. “My friend, I think you are confused.” He takes a furtive peek over Placidus’s head, but Esca has vanished.  
  
Placidus smiles lopsidedly and shrugs Marcus’s hand away.  
  
“No,” he says. “I am not. But then, you do not appear to be so anymore, either.”  
  
“I - me?” Marcus asks, and now he really is confused. Placidus seems to realize it and shakes his head.  
  
“No, not about this. Just...” he gestures wordlessly at the whole of Marcus. “You seem better, somehow. Certain. Strong. Like you used to be.”  
  
There is a goodbye in those words that Marcus hears, even with his dull ears. He reaches out pointlessly. “Placidus...”  
  
“The E.A.G.L.E. was last spotted at Bewcastle, or so the rumors tell. I wish you...” Placidus bites his lip and looks down. “I wish you happiness, if I cannot bless your journey.”  
  
And then Placidus is the one to walk away.  
  
\-------------  
  
Marcus is standing in his room, one hand in his hair and one on his hip, when Esca finds him.  
  
“Well?” a voice says from the doorway, startling Marcus into swinging around. Cloaked in shadow and leaning against the wall, and with such a dark tone in his voice, Esca’s wiry frame is almost... threatening. “Did you get what you wished? Or should I say... did you give him what he wanted?”  
  
Marcus’s hackles rise, though possibly he deserves this. There were things he should have seen, but didn’t.  
  
“No,” he says, and then wishes that he had been more ambiguous. It seems his fate to be as transparent as a glass window. “I - that is not what I wanted, after all.”  
  
Something about Esca’s posture changes; his back straightens even as his shoulders relax, and he steps into the light.  
  
“Do you know what you want now?” Esca says, voice so dark and low now that Marcus has to suppress a shiver.  
  
Before he can think the better of it, Marcus licks his lips and whispers, “Show me.”  
  
Esca crosses the room faster than Marcus would have believed possible, and then his hand is curling in the collar of Marcus’s shirt, yanking his head down. His eyes bore into Marcus. Marcus feels his hands reach out to settle on the other man’s hips; feels his body relax into Esca’s grip. Esca is so much shorter and slighter that it should feel comical. It does not.  
  
“When I saw his hands on you, I had half a mind to put my hands to him, though less kindly,” Esca lifts his face so that his stubble scrapes along Marcus’s cheek and he is mouthing the words into Marcus’s ear. The hand not twisted in his shirt ghosts along Marcus’s torso to spread possessively at the line of his trousers.  
  
Marcus finds it hard to catch his breath.  
  
“Why did you not?” he asks in a rough voice he barely recognizes.  
  
Marcus sees a smile curve at the edge of Esca’s mouth.  
  
“Because,” Esca breathes, “I trusted that you knew what you wanted.”  
  
And then he shows Marcus exactly what it is the heat in their blood demands.  
  
\-------------  
  
“Said the frog to the scorpion,” Uncle Aquila mutters when Marcus tells him of his plans.  
  
“Do not speak about him in such a way,” Marcus snaps, and then manages a half smile to soften the words. His Uncle cares for him, he knows. “Our histories are not the whole of us.”  
  
“He is what he is,” Uncle Aquila says, not unkindly. “As you are. And I know that you will not hear aught against him if you have decided him worthy. I can only hope that you are right.”  
  
With a heavy sigh he turns and plucks from a tall shelf a strange looking device. It is a gray box covered in switches and colored buttons. Marcus stares at it.  
  
“Is this…”  
  
“An analog machine, yes,” Uncle Aquila hands it to him. Marcus gapes.  
  
“But these are…”  
  
“Difficult to find and expensive, yes.” He nods and gives Marcus an achingly kind look. “If you are to have any chance of success, you will need this.”  
  
Marcus frowns. “What for?”  
  
Uncle Aquila laughs at this and claps a hand to Marcus’s shoulder. “My boy, if you find the E.A.G.L.E., you will not want to simply bring it home and hand it over to our beloved Queen, to be set in some museum, will you?”  
  
“I – no,” Marcus says slowly.  
  
As he walks down the hall, possibly going to his room or possibly just going to find Esca, Marcus realizes that he does in fact want more than that. He wants – he wants the E.A.G.L.E., and Esca, and to do what his father could not. He wants more than he ever imagined, or thought that he could have.  
  
The pain in his leg barely registers.  
  
\---------------------  
  
“You mean to build it, don’t you? The - the network,” Marcus says. Esca looks at the device in his arms and his green eyes go huge.  
  
“I had thought it would take you longer to come to it, but yes,” Esca says, a brilliant smile lighting his face. He steps forward. “You can get me there; you will charm or bully your way around people as we need it.” Admittedly, Esca would probably be punched in the face or thrown in jail on the second day if he attempted a quest like this on his own. “And I know how to use my people’s wires in conjunction with the E.A.G.L.E. to reach its full potential. Just as your father wished to do. Only, I will have enough of their trust to accomplish the task, with you by my side.” He reaches out to the machine in Marcus’s arms.  
  
“This will not be a key to happiness,” Marcus warns, holding himself away from Esca, who just stares at him. Marcus steadies himself. For everything that he wants, he isn’t far enough gone – or perhaps too far gone – not to throw it all away if Esca demands it. “I know that you have been searching for it, but it is a responsibility that will not rest. It will consume you, and I…” he searches for the words. “I would take that burden for you.”  
  
Esca takes two quick steps forward and suddenly he has slammed into Marcus’s chest, is tilting his head up, is pressing his perfect mouth to Marcus’s. Marcus parts his lips in surprise, gasping, and Esca presses closer, snaking a hand around the back of Marcus’s neck and his tongue into Marcus’s mouth.  
  
The sensations – wet heat _Esca_ – overwhelm Marcus for a moment, until they are suddenly gone. He opens his eyes, trying not to embarrass himself with a whimper or moan, and realizes his hands are empty.  
  
It is not only his hand that feels empty. Marcus touches his hand to his mouth and tries to summon up anger, or simply grief. But there is none left in him.  
  
“I know you would take that burden,” Esca says softly. Marcus snaps his head back up, shocked that Esca is still there, cradling the analog machine in his arms. The smaller man is inexplicably smiling at him, the soft expression somehow fading away the dirt and lines that cling to his face. “But to let you take it, I would have to walk away from you. And I find that though I could perhaps walk away from the E.A.G.L.E., I cannot walk away from you.”  
  
Marcus smiles, finally, and all of his doubts fall away from him at last. He touches Esca’s cheek with a steady hand. This is so much more than he ever dreamed of, and yet all of it is right.  
  
“Then we will walk together,” Marcus says, and finally believes it.  
  
  



End file.
